318 A NATURALIST ON THE " CHALLENGER." 



been kicked off on his first attempt at riding, had not tried 



acram 



The sacrificial stone, against which the heads of the victims 

 were dashed, is an insignificant looking one, in no way different 

 from the other slabs, except that it is smaller and stands by 

 itself a little in front of them, near one corner of the monnd. 

 In front of it, in old time, bodies have been heaped up till they 

 formed a pile ten feet high. Whilst I was sketching the mound 

 and its stones, a very pretty daughter of one of the chiefs came 

 and looked on, and at my request wrote her name and the Fijian 

 name of the mound in my sketch-book, in a very good round 



hand. 



There are several similar slab-built foundations of temples 

 about the open space near the site of the Na Vatani Tawaki, but 

 except in the case of one small one, they are not in such good 

 preservation. The slabs from one of these are now being used 

 to construct the foundations for a Wesleyan church. Con- 

 spicuous amongst the buildings close by, is the large " visitors' 

 house," where guests were entertained, and, if of distinction, 

 always provided with human flesh, at least once, by their hosts. 



Beside the building, a slight depression in the turf is the 

 remains of one of the ovens used for cooking the " long pig," for 

 this is the actual name by which human flesh always went in 

 the Fijian language. I always thought it a joke, until I was 

 told by the interpreter. On a tree overhanging the ovens are to 

 be seen notches, cut in the trunk from its base to its summit, an 

 old score of the number of victims cooked beneath. 



There is another stone, not far from Thackombau's house, 

 which is smooth, and somewhat like a millstone in appearance. 

 The ground around this is paved with slabs of coral rock, which 

 had been perforated with holes by boring mollusks and worms 

 before it was taken from the water. So many heads have been 

 dashed against this stone, that it has happened that human teeth 

 have fallen into almost all the holes in the slabs, and have 

 becomed jammed there. The slabs were quite full of them. 



This second stone was seen by Captain Wilkes' officers, and 

 is mentioned by Brenchley. We were told by the people that 

 a second ceremony was performed at it, the heads of bodies 



